The problem with bans for stacking is that what constitutes (skill) stacking is pretty subjective. Also, teams regularly change as people join and leave the server. The stacked team might switch halfway through the map. Basically, there is really no good way for an admin to consistently determine which team is stacked, figure out who stacked that team, and make sure the team doesn't become stacked again. Admins could, of course, just haphazardly ban people who they 'think' are stacking, but this is likely to cause more damage than the original stacking by banning people who weren't really stacking. tl;dr - Admins will never be able to 'fix' stacking via bans.
Thats why there needs to be a ranking system like distopia has. Then it becomes incredibly evident if a team is stacked in any way. I disagree, new players could be quickly turned off to empires by getting skill stacked against and totally railroaded over and over again. A 30 min ban or more would be the best way to allow the offender to know its not a good idea to stack while still allowing him to come back and play.
I don't understand what I may have done to cause your severe distaste with me, but I don't enjoy the consistent insults and general rude behaviour. Please discontinue - All the best - Vulkanis
its the new fad valkanis. It moves from hating one person to the next. It was empty before you, now its you.
y so srs? The last time we had a ranking system, lots of us just farmed points as engineers and everyone had the suicide command bound to a key to prevent themselves from being killed. It's easy for the experienced players to identify a stack but it's not as easy to ban anyone for stacking. Clan stacking is not an offence as far as I can tell and skill stacking is so subjective it might as well not be one either. I remember one occasion when I, among a few others, was described as "skilled" by some guy trying to justify himself joining a stacked team. Some of us will spout all kinds of bullshit just to argue that they aren't stacking. I still think some form of ranking system would be useful, but if we are ever going to implement one, it should be different from the one we used to have. I don't know about other games, but I think the one used in Heroes of Newerth may be feasible if given several adjustments. For non-HoN-players, this a summary of how it works: Players begin with 1500 points. They gain or lose points whenever their teams win or lose. The number of points added or deducted is proportional to the difference between your score and the average score in the opposite team. For example, if the opposite team has a much higher average than you, you lose fewer points upon losing or gain more if you win. Like I said, this system will need to be changed somewhat in order to work in Empires. For one, it requires the implementation of Hermit's suggestion that players should not be allowed to switch teams once they have joined one team and the comm vote timer has ended, even if they joined Specs in between the switch, eg NF-Specs-BE. If anyone stack to the point where they gain nothing for winning, too bad. Doesn't matter if HoN rocks or sucks or whatever. The point system or whatever it's called in the game is what I think is useful. The basic idea should work for a game like ours which involves a lot of teamwork. It just needs some adjustments to prevent exploits.
It's easy to ban someone for not listening to an admin. Admin asks you to join the other team, you don't listen, get kicked! Easy peasy? (I'm not quite sure what to do when the admin wants to fix a stacked team by having the players on the stacked-against team join spectator, though. Find a new server?)
Unless they spend 5 dollars or just happen to have another account like most of us.. This won't be an issue when the community grows(like with the steam release) so focus on making the game better and hold population instead of making the game balanced for the 40 ppl who currently play. Ranks just brings point whores, I would rather have stackers who want to win then people who just whore points.
http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z66/YouzY/Empires SS/?action=view¤t=emp_isle0001.jpg I was laughing at that.
